“From what I’ve seen of their technology, I would have guessed as much,” Dekaas answered. “If it’s possible for us to get access to the infirmary — the Vanir have shown no interest in reclaiming the installation, and you know how much we could use it.”
“They may show interest now,” Teyla pointed out. “And if so, this world will no longer be safe for anyone. But I will speak to Colonel Sheppard.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
They had reached the entrance to the installation, and Teyla saw the medic brace himself as he stepped out onto the brightly-lit pavement. John was nowhere in sight, but Elizabeth was still talking to Alabaster, who had been joined by Guide. Osir’s hatch was closed, the crew presumably readying the ship for takeoff; the hatches on Mirelies and Durant were still open, but there were no Travelers in sight. She wondered for a moment where Ford and his wife had gone, and guessed they were on one of the other ships, or perhaps with John. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Dekaas’s face for once unguarded, watching the Wraith with a mix of longing and regret, and she touched his sleeve.
“Do you wish to speak to them? You said you once knew Guide.”
“It was a long time ago, and that queen is dead. I remember Alabaster as a child at her mother’s knee. But, yes, I would like to speak to them, if I may.” Dekaas gave her a wry smile. “If only to annoy Guide.”
“I see no harm in it.” Teyla glanced around again — still no Travelers in sight, and surely even if one saw them speaking to the Wraith, it would not betray Dekaas’s past — and started toward the Wraith, opening her mind to them. *Guide. There is one who wishes speech with you.*
Guide turned, and she felt the surge of emotions as he recognized the man at her side, shock, surprise, something between displeasure and nostalgia. She caught the briefest glimpse of another Wraith, slender and elegant, and then Guide had himself under control again. *Seeker’s — pet.*
“This is Dekaas,” Teyla said aloud, and, looking sideways, saw tears in Dekaas’s eyes. He had seen what she had seen, she realized; he had the Gift, the same ability to read the Wraith telepathy.
“Dekaas?” Alabaster said, surprise changing to uncomplicated pleasure.
Dekaas bowed sharply, the gesture encompassing both of them. “Lady.”
*I might have known he’d survive,* Guide said.
*I was sure you would,* Dekaas answered. His tone was oddly uninflected, as though he hadn’t used his Gift in a very long time, but his meaning was clear.
Guide showed his teeth in what Teyla thought was genuine amusement. *You are just as I remember.*
Dekaas bowed again. *Thank you.*
Elizabeth looked from one to the other, obviously aware that there was a conversation going on that she couldn’t follow. “This — you were on Alabaster’s hive?”
“Her mother’s,” Dekaas answered. “Though I remember the Lady when she was young.”
“As I remember you,” Alabaster said. “Should you wish — I would welcome you to return to us, on my hive.”
*My Queen,* Guide began, and Alabaster stopped him with a look.
*The Fair One would find him useful, I think. And he is our responsibility.*
Pets, Teyla thought. Useful beasts. Creatures to be taken in by responsible persons. From Dekaas’s expression, he could perceive the same nuances in Alabaster’s mental voice, and yet she could feel his longing as well.
“Dekaas!”
Teyla turned, to see Lesko at the bottom of Durant’s ramp.
“Dekaas, what the hell —?” Lesko stopped abruptly, his expression changing, and Dekaas’s eyes flickered closed for an instant. “So it’s true. I never would have believed it.”
Dekaas straightened his back, his face setting into a cold mask. “I’m still myself.”
“You’re a worshipper.” Lesko shook his head. “We trusted you.”
“And when was that trust misplaced?” Elizabeth asked, her voice deceptively mild.
“Elizabeth.” Dekaas shook his head. “It’s not worth it.” He looked back at Alabaster. “I will come with you, Lady. With thanks.”
“You won’t set foot on Durant again,” Lesko said.
“There’s nothing there I need,” Dekaas said. “Keep the equipment — call it payment for my passage all these years. I will go with Alabaster.”
Lesko looked startled, as though he’d expected protests, pleading. Or perhaps, Teyla thought, he’d just realized that he’d rid himself of his only doctor. “Very well,” she said aloud.
“Tell me about the off world teams,” Lorne said. He leaned back in his chair, and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. It had been too long since he’d slept, and there wasn’t much chance of rest any time soon. He put that thought aside, and concentrated on the matter at hand. At least this was something useful he could do, instead of worrying about whether or not the alflageolis had mutated into something worse. “Banks?”
“At last check-in, everyone reported no changes, except Dr. Hue on PRG-881.” There were dark shadows under Banks’ eyes, and her hair hung lank in its loose tail. “She reports her party has evacuated to Sateda since they didn’t come prepared for arctic camping. It’s deep winter on PRG-881. Peters and Ramirez report that they’ve established camps, and are going to wait it out. Peters had planned a two-night stay anyway, and Ramirez — it was supposed to be a quick in and out to get her samples, but she always comes prepared to stay a while. And of course Colonel Sheppard’s team has reported all well. Dr. Parrish’s group, that’s PGX-239, says the plants have stopped shooting at them, but the DHD is still out of commission. They’re waiting for the system to re-set or for us to call off the quarantine.”
“Right,” Lorne said. Four of the five were fine, but the fifth… Plants that fired energy bolts and a damaged DHD were definitely major problems, but he didn’t want to bring them back here when there was a chance the alflageolis would kill them all anyway. At least Ronon’s team didn’t seem to be in immediate danger. “When are we scheduled to check with them again?”
Banks glanced at her watch. “About twenty minutes, sir.”
“I want to talk to them myself,” Lorne said. “In the meantime, how are we doing for food?”
“We’re all right, sir.” That was Captain Kudela, who had taken charge of supplies after he’d been stuck in the gate room on his way back from PDG-313. “There are enough MREs in the jumper bay to last all of us for four days, and I’ve been talking to Sergeant Pollard and Dr. Wu about ways to get more supplies through the quarantine if necessary. The biggest problem right now is that we have to keep the contaminated trash, but hopefully the scientists will fix that.”
The biggest problem was the looming mutation, changing harmless bacteria into something that would kill everyone on Atlantis. Lorne swallowed the words, knowing he needed to present a positive front. If there was no cure, Ronon’s team would be better off waiting for the DHD to reset and going to Sateda or just about anywhere else. But that was the absolute worst-case scenario, he told himself. Beckett was bound to find a solution. “All right, that’s it — unless either of you has anything to raise?”
Banks and Kudela exchanged glances, and Kudela said, “No, sir.”
“I’ll let you know when we’re about to call PGX-239,” Banks said, and let herself out of the office, Kudela at her heels.
Left to himself, Lorne took another swallow of his cooling coffee — too cold, really, but he wasn’t about to waste any. The scientists are doing their jobs, he told himself. Even the Wraith — even Ember is doing his part. They’re going to find an answer. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. He’d rest, just for a minute, and then get on with his day.
A knock woke him, and he jerked awake to see Banks peering sheepishly around the edge of the door. “Sorry, Major,” she said, “but you said you wanted to talk to Ronon.”
“Right.” Lorne pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until he saw sparks, then hauled himself out of hi
s chair. “On my way.”
The Stargate shimmered blue against the multi-colored glass. Lorne ignored it, focusing instead on the screen at Banks’s station. “Ronon.”
“Major.” The image was flecked with static. Banks frowned and touched keys, and it steadied again.
“What’s your situation?”
In the screen, Ronon shrugged. “We’ve figured out how to keep the plants from shooting at us, but we’ve got another problem. We’re about five hours from sunset, and Captain Aulich says we’re going to get a line of strong storms passing over us at that point. We don’t have any decent shelter here, and we can’t get away from the gate without running into more of the plants.”
“How bad do these storms look?”
“She says they’re strong. Lots of lightning.”
Lorne swallowed a curse. “And there’s no shelter at all?”
Ronon shrugged again. “We’re working on a dugout in the side of the hill, but it’s not going to be much good against a thunderstorm. It’ll keep the rain off — mostly — but that’s about it.”
“We’ve run into a bigger problem,” Lorne said. “There’s a real possibility that this bacteria is going to mutate into something that’s fatal to humans. I don’t want to bring you through unless there’s no other choice.”
“Ok.” Ronon paused. “Is there any chance you’ll have the problem solved before our sunset?”
“We’re working on it,” Lorne said, and thought from Ronon’s expression that he understood what was really being said.
“We should be fine until the storms hit,” Ronon said. “And if we don’t get hit directly, we should be able to hang on.”
“Understood,” Lorne said. “If you come back here, and we don’t get this resolved — it’s a death sentence.”
Ronon nodded.
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Lorne said, and tried not to see the doubt in Ronon’s eyes. “Atlantis out.” He tapped his fingers on the nearest console, trying to juggle the pieces into a new shape, but nothing seemed to fit. He scowled, and touched his radio. “Dr. Zelenka. Can I have a word?”
The little scientist appeared a few moments later, his hair disordered as though he’d been tugging on it. He looked dead tired, like everyone caught in the quarantine zone, his skin pasty and the skin under his eyes swollen and heavy. “Yes? Is it important?”
“Yeah. You heard about the problems on PGX-239?”
Zelenka paused. “I thought they were to evacuate to Sateda?”
“There’s a problem with the DHD.” Lorne ran down the situation, watching Zelenka’s expression change from annoyed to concerned. “What I want to know is, is there anything we can do for them from here?”
Zelenka jammed his fingers into his hair, disarranging it even further. “Are they sure it’s a software problem? Not the DHD itself?”
“They’re pretty convinced.”
“Who is the technician?”
“Sergeant Joseph. Claire Joseph. She was on SG-5 and then a gate tech at the SGC before she was assigned here.”
“I know her.” Zelenka nodded. “She knows her business. If she says there’s nothing wrong with the DHD itself, I believe her. And that — if it’s not a cracked crystal, a bad connection, something physical like that, there’s not much we can do. Not only did the Ancients do everything they could to make the programming inaccessible — if in fact it’s really a program as we understand programming, and not something far more complex — but we have never unraveled much more than the addressing system. It’s not as though I could somehow go through and reinstall the dialing program.”
“Ok.” Lorne hadn’t really expected any better. Not even Carter had actually reprogrammed the system, just used it to transmit the codes that destroyed the Replicators. “Joseph tells me the system will reboot automatically at some point. Is there any way we can trigger that from here? Make it happen sooner?”
“Maybe? I will look into it, though I’m needed in the lab — but at least this is something that is actually in my field.” Zelenka gave a wry smile. “But I’m not hopeful.”
“Could McKay do it?” Lorne winced, wishing he’d been more tactful, but Zelenka didn’t seem offended.
“Rodney is a genius. If anyone could, it would be him. I would ask him, the next time they call in. The problem is that this is a sealed system. We have no access to the workings of what we are calling the programming, and we have never been able to find that access except once on Datara.”
“Do what you can,” Lorne said, and to his embarrassment, his voice cracked. “We’ve got six people we need to bring home.”
“I will do my best,” Zelenka answered, and turned away.
Parrish sprawled full length in the grass of the hill, grateful for the break. His arm was burning in spite of the field dressing — it would probably hurt less if he hadn’t spent so much time cutting branches from the conifers, and then figuring out how to harvest the largest leaves from the succulents without setting off the plants’ offensive reflex. He was actually quite pleased that they’d managed to get enough of the big leaves to make a roof for Ronon’s low-lying shelter without triggering more than a couple of bolts. And it was pretty ingenious how Ronon had shaved pointy slivers from the chunks of bark so that he and Samara could use them as improvised nails to fasten the leaves to each other and to the frame in overlapping “shingles.” If it was just rain they had to worry about, he’d have given them pretty good odds, not just of surviving, but of surviving in a certain amount of comfort.
The Stargate closed again, and he watched Ronon walk away from the DHD. It didn’t look as though they’d be leaving any time soon, and that was the real problem. He sat up and reached for his water bottle, pulling out the survival filter that he carried and sucking the water through it like a straw. It had an odd, not unpleasant taste, as though it were colder than it actually was, but he put the bottle aside after the first few swallows. The stream would probably fill overnight, if Aulich was right about the oncoming weather, but just in case there was no point in being wasteful. In the west, the sun was sinking into a rising bank of cloud, its disk glowing cherry-red, like molten iron. Surely the people on Atlantis would get this whatever-it-was under control before the storms got here.
From his vantage point on the hillside, the patch of succulents seemed to extend for several hundred meters, maybe even a thousand meters, the plants growing larger and blending into a thicker jungle. He took out his binoculars and scanned slowly along the line. Yes, it looked as though there were another, larger succulent further away; it also had a central pod, but its leaves grew in pairs rather than a staggered spiral. The pod itself was different, too, standing further out of the nest of leaves, and its top was more pointed. Some of them were more than a meter tall, a few perhaps as much as two meters, though it was hard to judge size at this distance. But that made them the tallest objects in the area by some considerable margin, except for the Stargate itself, and that meant that those pointed pods were more likely than not to attract the lightning.
He frowned, a vague idea taking shape, but before he could put it together, Ronon called his name. “Dr. Parrish! All of you! We need to talk.”
Parrish pushed himself to his feet and started down the hill, falling in with the others as they gathered around the stack of meteorological equipment. Ronon’s face was grim, and Parrish felt a thread of fear worm its way down his spine. “What’s up?”
“Bad news,” Ronon answered. “The problems on Atlantis are worse than they thought. Apparently this bug is going to mutate into something lethal — not right away, they’ve got some time, but they really don’t want anybody coming through the gate now.”
There was an instant of silence, and then a babble of questions, but Parrish barely heard them. That was bad news, all right, pretty much the worst he’d heard in all the time he’d been on Atlantis. If that was the case, then no, there was no way they should risk going back, no matter how bad the weathe
r got. They’d have to hope that either the Stargate reset itself or the people on Atlantis found a cure. He shivered in spite of the sunlight. That was the joker in the pack, the fear of some deadly disease that could run like wildfire through an unprotected population. That had happened twice already on Atlantis; each time, the medical staff had beaten the bugs, but it had been too close for comfort. The second time, the disease had destroyed memories, and only the fact that Teyla and Ronon had each had kirsan fever as children had bought them a chance to save the city. But they had found a cure both times, he reminded himself. The medical staff was good — was the best in Pegasus. They’d find an answer.
CHAPTER NINE
THE CAR from Peterson Air Force Base pulled up at the Cheyenne Mountain gate, and Richard Woolsey saw the airman on duty come to attention when he recognized General O’Neill in the backseat. It only took a moment for them to be waved through.
“Convenient to hitch a ride with me, huh?” O’Neill asked as he leaned back. “First class service all the way from DC.”
“Yes,” Woolsey said. It had definitely registered that all of the usual little irritations of traveling as the IOA’s representative had somehow been whisked away when traveling with O’Neill instead. Not only were three stars magic, but everybody liked O’Neill. He seemed to know everybody in the Air Force. Or maybe it was just everybody in the Air Force in Colorado. Or maybe it was that everybody in the Air Force wanted to claim that they knew O’Neill.
General Landry was waiting for them in the conference room on level 26, beside the vast windows that looked out on the Stargate. He looked pleased to see O’Neill – less so to see Woolsey.
“I brought a friend,” O’Neill said jauntily. He was kidding – probably. Or maybe he was reminding Landry that Woolsey was supposed to be on their side, and that he had been when the chips were down and Atlantis was stuck on Earth.
“Mr. Woolsey,” Landry said, shaking hands. “Good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too,” Woolsey said. And because he was concerned, he cut the rest of the pleasantries. “Any word from Atlantis on this latest problem? The bacterial – or is it viral – contamination?” He of all people didn’t envy the folks who were working on the problem. An alien infestation was bad news, and potentially terrible news, if this latest report about potential mutation was accurate. Part of him wished he were there, taking reports from Beckett and Zelenka, trying to work the problem himself rather than being stuck here.
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